Remember
by waterfallphoenix
Summary: He remembered her, even when he had lost his true self.


The war was going to destroy them.

The war was going to destroy them, and Ida knew it.

The war was going to destroy all the beauty that lay in this valley where the impossible had been created in the form of monuments. Those who resisted would become ghosts, frozen in the monument they tried to protect. Those who gave in would lose their true selves and turn from beautiful, colorful birds to wingless crows, cursed to walk the monuments. Walk, but never climb. Choosing how close to the sky they were would be too close to flying. Each would have to choose one of these fates.

No one thought to take the code.

They had all been brought up to never touch the sacred geometry. If they did, they would lose their wings forever. If they did, wings were not meant for them.

But Ida was different.

She was a hero willing to sacrifice her wings and the crown that made her a princess to save her kingdom. She was willing to take the code and run, leave everything she knew behind until the war was over. She was willing to leave her love.

But the sunset before Ida stole sacred geometry from the eighteen monuments, he swore to her that no matter what his fate, no matter what impossibilities happened, he would never forget her.

She stroked his soft, beautiful red feathers and said goodbye for the last time.

For hours, he stared into the distance, wondering where his love had gone. Midnight, and he saw white bird, wingless, crownless, running into the distance, slipping the code for the Observatory into the white hat that had replaced her crown.

* * *

Without Ida, he was lost. He didn't have the power to resist anymore. He wanted to become a ghost, so they might speak once more, should she return. So he would have to become a crow, he would have to lose his true self, cursed to walk the monuments forever. Unless he wanted to choose the fate of those who did nothing, who neither resisted nor gave in. They were buried in the deepest part of the Descent, a monument without code, built for the fallen.

He would have to become a crow. For a crow, there was hope. Buried in the Descent, there was none. The impossible could only be created with things. The impossible could not be created with lives.

* * *

Years later, Ida returned to her destroyed world. She learned how to walk the monuments, instead of flying them.

She may have lost her wings, but she wasn't a crow. She could still climb.

* * *

He walked along the monument, cursed, like the others, having lost his true self. He was merely a bothersome crow-person.

Except he was different.

None of the other crows had any memory at all of their lives before. All they knew was how to walk and where to walk.

This crow had been walking the monuments like the others, but with one memory that he concentrated on for years: a beautiful white bird.

He often felt as if he had thousands of memories of her, but they all seemed to blend together into one... but there was one that stood out.

In the middle of the night, she ran, wingless, with a hat instead of a crown. He assumed that was what she looked like then.

Looking up from the ground, he saw that same figure standing below him. He knew she was special. He had to get her attention. By walking? No. By taking something from her.

He wished he could speak to her, but all he could do was stand there on the small platform as she took her hat back.

* * *

She awoke on a rock in the middle of the sea, remembering her dream. She couldn't remember much, but she could remember one thing.

She remembered the color of her dress and hat. They weren't white as they usually were, but a beautiful shade of red. She had felt she recognized the color from somewhere, but she didn't realize until then.

It was the color of his feathers. His soft, beautiful feathers that were now either the black of a crow's or the blue of a ghost's.

She saw a flower on the rock next to her. It's red, like his feathers. She smiled and took it with her.

Then she realized something…

She had forgotten half the monuments she had been to. Still, she continued on her journey. She was often forgetful anyway.

* * *

She had been going down, down, down, nowhere but down. She felt like she had gone down further than anyone ever had since the monument was built.

As she reached the lowest point, she realized where she was.

She also realized something else, something horrible.

There had been a third option. The option to do nothing, and be buried in the Descent, a monument built for the fallen.

She walked forward to one grave in the center of all the others. It was probably someone important, maybe one of her parents. She placed the red flower there, and hoped it wasn't her love.

* * *

She placed the last piece of code in its place at the Observatory. She was finally done. She had restored all the monuments.

She stood in the middle of a plain, open space. The crows surrounded her, seeming to have broken free of the curse.

There was one crow she recognized. Yes, she could recognize crows. They weren't all the same, they had small differences. She recognized the crow who had taken her hat. She had forgotten the monument, but she couldn't just forget that. There were some things you just couldn't forget.

Beams of light came from the sky, turning the crows to the beautiful, winged birds they once were.

She seemed to be looking around at all of them, but she was only staring at the one with soft, beautiful red feathers. He was the one she had recognized as a crow; he was the one she recognized as a bird.

And she knew why he had stolen her hat, why he had been able to do a little more than just walk.

He had promised that he would remember her, and he had kept his promise.


End file.
